Cisco and Microsoft Invest in London as U.K. Gives $81 Million

By Amy Thomson -
Dec 6, 2012

Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) and Microsoft
Corp. (MSFT) are among technology companies that will open new offices
in East London as the U.K. government pledged 50 million pounds
($81 million) to revamp the startup hub known as Silicon
Roundabout.

The funds will go to refurbishing the neighborhood to the
East of London’s old city, to create the “largest indoor civic
space” in Europe to host classrooms and working space, the Tech
City Investment (CLIG) Organization, a branch of the government’s trade
and investment department, said in a statement today.

London has been working to attract technology jobs and
investment to the city as the U.K. grapples with budget
shortfalls and unemployment. Microsoft has committed to opening
a technology development center which will employ young people
as apprentices, Tech City said in the statement. Cisco will
partner with University College London and DC Thomson, the
Scottish publisher of the Beano comic series, to create a center
that will host digital and media companies.

“The U.K. is in a global race, and I am determined that we
as a government continue doing everything we can to equip the
U.K. to compete and thrive,” Prime Minister David Cameron said
in the statement. “As well as backing the businesses of today,
we are creating an aspiration nation and also backing the
innovative, high-growth businesses of the future.”

The British Chambers of Commerce cut its growth forecasts
for 2013 and 2014 this week as George Osborne, chancellor of the
exchequer, announced a fiscal plan that cut welfare spending and
pensions of the wealthy. The unemployment rate in the U.K. for
the three months ended in August was 7.9 percent, or 2.53
million jobless, according to the Office for National
Statistics.